If you witnessed a Kraftwerk performance during their 2004 worldwide tour, you may want this 2-disc live recording as a token reminder of your experience. Especially if you attended a show in Warszawa, Ljubljana, Riga, Moskwa, Paris, Berlin, London, Budapest, San Francisco, Tokyo or Tallinn -- the cities from which these virtually perfect live performances are culled. The first eight songs from disc one are absolutely incredible live recordings, most notably "The Man-Machine", "Planet Of Visions", and "Vitamin". The clarity and bombacity of its sound is impressive. Would you pay the extra money it would cost if this came with an implantable chip that would project their video at one meter in front of you while walking around listening? Hmmm, I would. Unfortunately, this is not available. Simply listening to this, however, will help you to recall your live Kraftwerk experience.
Speaking personally, I attended their concert in Amsterdam. At the Heineken Arena. So imagine how many people fit into an "arena". Now imagine, of all those people, about 50 are women. The remaining thousands, all men. And not just regular Dutch dudes out to see a show, but men outfitted in one of two styles of dress: 1. in affected Kraftwerk/Sprockets ensemble -- black leather pants with combat boots and a black turtleneck, or 2. in Classic Man-Machine Kraftwerk -- black suit with sharp red tie. Oh how I wished I had my little minidv cam for filming Kraftwerk Parking Lot. No matter how fascinating the crowd was, the show was somehow even better. From the three 30 meter x 30 meter video panels displaying their minimal but powerfully effective video accompaniment (much of which is available to view on their website), to the actual robots backlit behind a scrim, then exposed and moving, to the mind-blowing clarity and depth of sound (which is hard to do right in a large space like that) the aural and visual orchestration reeked of utter Kraftwerkian perfection.
And of course, if you did NOT get a chance to see them last year, here's your chance to pick up an incredible aural document of some of their best performances from all over the world!
Lali Puna fans, here's a double disc compilation of odds'n'ends from your favorite German pop-tronic dreamies! The first disc is a jumble of old and new remixes (for Dntel, Two Lone Swordsmen and Boom Bip) and originals (previously available on a handful of EPs and compilations), whereas the second disc is composed entirely of remixes by other folks (with one exception "Left Handed Dub" by Lali Puna themselves). Of the nineteen tracks, eight are previously unreleased including two new ones recorded early this year -- the dreamy opener "The Failure Of The Leading Sign Industry" and the very Stereolab-y pop-kraut "Past Machine". Actually the remixes (by the likes of Dntel, Two Lone Swordsmen, Boom Bip, Alias, Flowchart, Sixtoo, Thomas Leboeg and To Rococo Rot) don't sound all that far off from the originals. So what that means is turn off your phone, don your cozy pjs, stretch out and settle in for a long lulling listen. Lemme hear you say, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Lali Puna fans, here's a double disc compilation of odds'n'ends from your favorite German pop-tronic dreamies! The first disc is a jumble of old and new remixes (for Dntel, Two Lone Swordsmen and Boom Bip) and originals (previously available on a handful of EPs and compilations), whereas the second disc is composed entirely of remixes by other folks (with one exception "Left Handed Dub" by Lali Puna themselves). Of the nineteen tracks, eight are previously unreleased including two new ones recorded early this year -- the dreamy opener "The Failure Of The Leading Sign Industry" and the very Stereolab-y pop-kraut "Past Machine". Actually the remixes (by the likes of Dntel, Two Lone Swordsmen, Boom Bip, Alias, Flowchart, Sixtoo, Thomas Leboeg and To Rococo Rot) don't sound all that far off from the originals. So what that means is turn off your phone, don your cozy pjs, stretch out and settle in for a long lulling listen. Lemme hear you say, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Not so much just a tour video, but a history of the band as well, which is surprisingly interesting and quite beautifully filmed. All the band members seem quite likable, and have interesting stuff to say about the joy of playing music, touring, the music industry, family (two band members are married and they travel with their young child). The live performances are lovely and intense. It's easy to think a band like Low would be mind numbingly boring live, but somehow it works. Reverent and hushed, the band barely move, but bathed in soft light, usually in a church, they really manage to transport the listener / viewer to some wholly other place. What's most remarkable perhaps is that all of the footage (most shot on digital video, some on super 8) manages to convey the same sort of vibe as the music: brooding, dark, slow, sparse, lugubrious, emotional, moody, almost as if the movie itself was just another Low song.
If you're already a fan of Lungfish, you're familiar with their style of song-craft: each track is sort of like one super heavy, distorted riff that's explored and repeated through propulsive, psychedelic rhythms. This formula is still in practice on Feral Hymns, their 11th (!) album, though they've reached a definite "moment"... Dare I gush, but to listen to this album is to be FULLY immersed in the depths of Lungfish.
This is their first album (since their very first) to be recorded outside of the Discord-related studio, Inner Ear. And we definitely think it was a good move!! Not only does it sound great for being engineered by Tim Green at his San Francisco-based Louder Studio, but the temporary homelessness of the band during this process gave their collective creative mind the ability to breathe, to see their songs from inside and out and to fully sculpt the album as a whole and turn it into a very tangible, albeit visceral, expression.
The Balitmore foursome completely deconstruct each song/"riff" down to its essential elements. Following this, they gracefully rebuild, creating impressively engaging, hypnotic tracks that share an incredibly powerful depth. Dan Higgs' rich, throaty vocals proudly wade through these tracks with a force we all know and love but that force is especially intense, often riled up into an enigmatic, abstracted fury.
Although we thought Love Is Love was their heaviest album at its release, Feral Hymns weighs in far heavier, not really in the quantity of its sound but quality of it. This is an album that is so pared down to its most essential and amazing elements that repeated listenings keep rewarding in different ways every time.
Now, Andee really loves their record Necrophones, and Love Is Love (their last) had some definite great moments, including the addictive opening title track, but on Feral Hymns, the thorough exploration into the 'guts' of each song and the album overall, and the slow and meticulously elegant sonic sculpting of the band as a whole, works so so well it totally blows us away. Amazing!!
Circulations is an instrumental album in four sections, for four instruments: drums, guitar, harp and clarinet. And tape. Which we'll explain in a second. First though, let's just say: this is so GREAT. But it's been tough to review. 'Cause there's a lot of explaining to do. And it's the sort of thing where, yup, the construction of the music IS interesting, but reading about it sorta might make it sound like an academic exercise. Which it may be, in part. But our point is, that even if you don't know how it came about, academics aside it's a really really great listen! Like a crazy soundtrack, sort of (a lot of this would be perfect for some freaky '70s Italian horror/sci-fi/suspense flick). Sometimes bewilderingly dense, at others beautifully melodic and simple. There's a chaotic tangle of sounds but it's carefully crafted, moving through (and returning to) many moods.
You'll encounter moments of heavy distorto-percussion frenzy that sound not unlike Village of Savoonga, This Heat or Dead C. Passages of pretty melody carried by the harp or the clarinet. Intense, echoing drumscapes. Shimmering textures, loud stabs of skronk guitar, placid strings, stirring arpeggios, glitchy stutter. It's very dynamic indeed. Sometime simple and serene, sometimes seriously scrambled and spliced. A complex assemblage of sounds constantly morphing and mutating...
But let's give the background on this, 'cause we're sure that some of you will be intrigued. Basically, the deal here is that young French composer Pierre-Yves Mace (who has one other album out, on Tzadik), wrote out four solos for the four instruments (drums, guitar, harp, clarinet). The musicians in question recorded these solos. Then Mace took those recordings and created four processed tape-collage backing tracks to accompany each of the original individual solos, which were then slightly revised and performed again over the tapes that Mace created. Thus four movements, created in four stages, for Percussion/Tape, Guitar/Tape, Harp/Tape, and Clarinet/Tape. (It says "tape" here, so we will too, though we suspect a computer was involved at some point, not just old-fashioned cut and splice procedures.) The 'solo' instrument is the focus of each track, but you'll hear from all of 'em throughout the disc. Fortunately, Mace's talents extend beyond this disc's conceptual framework, however interesting. While it's fun to listen and try to pick out the sounds from each solo that have been processed and transposed and otherwise recontextualized in the taped accompaniment (you'll be cross referencing from one movement to another, looking for traces of a guitar lick or clarinet motif heard elsewhere), the end-result music is just as interesting and enjoyable without even thinking about how it was created.
It stands on its own as a highly-charged, detailed and often gorgeous instrumental piece of music, which could be a brilliant electro-acoustic improv session, kinda like Ground Zero or Supersilent or those Spring Heel Jack improv projects, that blend live instruments with live electronics and sampling (self-sampling in this case). But with a 20th (21st?) century classical feel. And it's definitely composed and purposeful. Very impressive. There's certainly been a few great releases lately from the Belgian label Sub Rosa (Tibetan Buddhist Rites, Mitchell Akiyama's Small Explosions That Are Yours To Keep) and now this. Recommended!
Ms Carolyn loves a good ol' singalong, her infectious hearty chuckle and storytelling frequently punctuate the proceedings. We've adored her strong sweet pipes alongside her pals Neko Case and Kelly Hogan (not to mention that her last album was called The Pros And Cons Of Collaboration), and now she's got a whole new album of duets! The songs run the gamut from the downright heartbreaking to the downright silly, from the totally staid standard country ("I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry") to the nuttily offbeat ("Rocket Piano Man" and "Slow Poke"). You can be sure that a kazoo will surface at some point or other. With the mightily talented, but criminally unsung Canadian troubadour Ford Pier, she tackles an unexpectedly retro-sounding swingy soul number "Done Something Wrong". It's definitely one of the album's highlights, of which there are plenty. The song's given extra punch from some groovin' bass and squealin' horns. Also joining her on the mic are a baker's dozen more cross-Canada co-horts, most notably Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer. It's always a grand ol' time when you're in the company of this Sicamous, British Columbia born lass.
Apogee marks the first collaboration betweeen the veteran avant-garde improvisers Musica Elettronica Viva (Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, and Richard Teitelbaum) and AMM (Keith Rowe, Eddie Prevost, and John Tilbury). Their collavorative set was recorded during one live session in April, 2004; and as one might imagine from their previous outings, these six men locate the immediacy of sound with various degrees of drama, inactivity, noise, and silence. There's squiggles from Keith Rowe's radio interferring with his guitar pick-ups, wooden thumps from the piano strings being tapped by hand, monopulse bleeps from digital clocks, the glistening drones from bowed cymbals, indeterminant metallic scrapings, and synthesized electronic bursts of scrambled noise. The studied clusters of notes from piano, horns, and strings that dot the Apogee sessions provide the trappings that these six are performing in a particular academic tradition of improvisation, and are the only the things that hamstring their monumentally post-modernist expressionism. Along with the three lengthy improvisations between all six improvisers, AMM and MEV both offer extended 30 minute recordings from live performances to round out this double disc set.
Ming (aka Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel, aka Celebrate Psi Phenomenon head honcho) has slowly been drifting into more metallic sound worlds with his last few releases, as BCM but also as the distinctly more metal Black Boned Angel, but with Ming, Kneale seems to be channelling a more divine scree, the upper register droning skree-scapes pioneered by the likes of Albert Ayler and Sun Ra, and more recently paid homage to by folks like Sunroof!, Total, Vibracathedral Orchestra and the like. Two discs, seven tracks, two hours of keening wailing drones, scraping and bleating, at times harsh and chaotic, with lots of feedback and clatter, and at others, shimmering and crystalline with warm whirling sonic ripples. Found sounds, field recordings, sounds that resemble but probably aren't actually throat singing, chanting, horns, squealing guitars, all captured on a crappy hand held recorder, for maximum grit and and a gorgeously blow out quality. Epic and transcendental, and in its own way quite brutal and beautiful. As with all things Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, this is VERY VERY LIMITED!!!
A mysterious package showed up on our doorstep one day a few weeks ago. An oversized brown paper sleeve printed with all sorts of geometric figures, atop them a drawing of a curled up skeleton, and beneath the skeleton were printed the words Monument Of Urns. And along with it came a note, printed on the same paper and in the same manner, which said simply "Free doom for all". We were more than halfway to digging this before we even slapped it in the cd player. And moments later, free-doom was indeed ours! (But it'll cost you five bucks.)
Included was a three inch cd-r, packed with 16 minutes of some of the most massive glacial super distorted, soul crushing doooooom we'd ever heard. Riffs that could flatten a city, given ample time to drift into nothingness before the next comes crashing down, a rhythm so slow and spare, it sounds like the drummer could smoke a cigarette between each snare hit, vocals, distant and hazy, as if being shouted from the bottom of a blackened pit, that sometimes roar ferociously before drifting back southward. Essential for fans of all things Skepticism, Bunkur, Esoteric, Corrupted, Earth, SUNNO))), Boris and the like!
Oh man! Where would we be without the Moog (pronounced MOAG, not MOOG). We wouldn't have Stereolab, or Tortoise, or E.L.P. (says Andee!) or almost any of the risk taking bands of the last thirty years. Well, we'd probably still have 'em but boy would they sound completely different. And most certainly not nearly as good! The history of Robert Moog (who is unbelievably cute and so effusive about his keyboards and the folks who play them) and the development of the synthesizer is totally fascinating, especially so for music tech nerds, but definitely fun for anyone to watch. Loads of insane footage from the sixties and seventies: Moog instructional videos, live performances, interviews, and up close examinations of the machine itself, a snarled mass of wires and knobs and plugs that look almost organic, like the inside of a human being! But it's definitely the live performances that drive the point home, showing the Moog in its element demonstrating quite easily how it managed to define and recreate the possibilities of synthesized sound! A particularly awesome clip features Gershon Kingsley (of Perrey and Kinglsey) defending the Moog against critics who at the time claimed it was a machine NOT a musical instrument, some Stereolab shot right here in SF, and of course some INSANE Keith Emerson Moog jams. Later in the film there's a brief bit on the theremin, but for the most part it's all about the moog!
Extra stuff includes deleted scenes, interviews with DJ Spooky, TIm Gane of Stereolab, Charlie Clouser of Nine Inch Nails, and more Bob Moog himself, as well as extra live footage from Money Mark, The Album Leaf, and more. Probably the most amazing extra though is a Schaefer Beer commercial, where a dude all decked out in his seventies finery, plays a wild Moog-ed up version of the Schaefer beer theme before pouring himself a tall cool one!!
We've had a few of these lurking on our shelves for a while, but (like so much other stuff, metal and otherwise) hadn't yet had a chance to give it the website review, until now... Moontower are a cult black metal duo from Poland that formed in the final year of the last millenium, and Praise The Apocalypse is their first full-length release dating from 2003. Being Polish, they're very Graveland influenced, though fortunately they've discarded any National Socialist associations in favor of a purely apolitical, anti-Christian stance.
This disc consists of seven thump n' grind rockers from the bowels of Hell, swathed in hellish buzzing fuzz-muzz, with rasping wretching vocals and monomaniacal programmed drums. The production is...distressed. The vocals in particular threaten to overload the rest of the already fully-fuzzed, distorted musick. We just LOVE this style of elite bathroom recorded burzumic mayhem. Well, it says this stuff was recorded in the "Stronghold of SETH", but while it's possible that stronghold is not a bathroom, it's also definitely no expensive studio. Such a studio would not survive this! Still sounds great though. And bewarned, chances are these few copies we have are the only ones we're gonna ever get...
While we wait for the cd to be restocked (hopefully, soon, maybe today!), we just got a few copies of a new VINYL reissue of this krautrock classic. It's an import, expensive and limited of course, but you're probably never ever gonna find an original LP at any price...not sure if it has the bonus tracks that the cd had, but it does have the liner notes. And more importantly, it's in packaging that folds out into a giant cross, just like the original LP sleeve apparently did!! Wow. Here's a portion of our review of this album from when we listed the Garden Of Delights cd version:
Aa masterpiece of suicidal, political Krautrock heaviosity from 1972. NECRONOMICON. Freaky then, freaky now. Psychedelic hard rock that was about as 'extreme' as it got at the time...definitely if Terrorizer magazine had existed back then, these Germans would have made the cover. Not that this extreme by today's blackened metal standards, as there's enough pretty and melodic elements included amongst the fuzz riffage to satisfy the mellower hippie types in the Necronomicon freak-scene. And, they're no Black Sabbath. Still, pretty far gone for '72. The title: How To Kill Yourself. Now that's a bad trip. The very first track, the seven-minute "Prolog", almost makes the remainder of this album superflous, as it's a full, epic encapsulation Necronomicon's heavy prog excess. Theirs is an album replete with stinging acid guitar, heady Hammond organ, and monkish chanting. Ecclisastical choirs wail over trudging, yearning guitar and organ -- shades of Magma and J.A. Caesar. It's like Amon Duul II murdering Pink Floyd and riding their animated corpses all the way to hell. Again, not in any way metal, but what you might call Wagnerian garage-psych... Definitely an obscure but A-list kraut/psych album for those with occult tastes...
In the liner notes for this new anthology of recordings by Willie Nelson, Kurt Wolff makes the apt point that Willie is loved by just about everyone. Not "everyone" as in every living person, but that people from myriad musical backgrounds and tastes tend to appreciate the cosmopolitan yet populist stylings of his singing and songwriting much more than his country contemporaries. As the bean counters and marketing execs might say, "he's got crossover appeal". Miles Davis was a big champion of Willie, and even though the man was alleged to have smoked a joint atop the White House during the Carter administration, he is still enjoyed by both "blue state" and "red state" types alike. His songwriting is simultaneously astutely profound and immediately appealing, as is strikingly evident in the first track on this disc "I Let My Mind Wander", with its quintessential country lyrics:
I let my mind wander,
And what did it do?
It just kept right on going,
Until it got back to you.
I let my mind wander.
Can't trust it one minute,
It's worse than a child.
Disobeys without conscience,
It's drivin' me wild,
When I let my mind wander.
But Nelson is also a master of melody and harmony and his songs are rife with jazz harmonies, blues progressions and even some South of the border swing (as on "Following Me Around"). An important caveat here is that his use of such esoteric, non-country, musical idioms is never forced, obvious, or self-conscious. Perhaps that's why such a broad swath of music lovers appreciate Willie. The 16 tracks -- mostly laid-back, leaning-over-the-bar tearjerkers -- here include both well known tracks and rarities taken from Nelson's career between the mid-sixties and mid-seventies. Highly recommended!
Journey back once more to the land of the pyramids, the time of the pharoahs, Ancient Egypt -- where metal raged and ruled supreme! Didn't it? Nile are convinced that it did, and their archeological research as presented on records like this, their eagerly-awaited fourth full-length album, ought to convince you too. Perhaps the world's most popular death metal band (and arguably the best), Nile probably need no further introduction. If you know death metal, you know Nile. This new disc, Annihilation Of The Wicked (is that a pun? An-NILE-ation of the Wicked?) picks up where their previous efforts left off, blasting insanely into serpentine song structures with the heaviness of a fallen obelisk, the vocalist chewing his gruff, unintelligible way through lyrics of Egyptological, occult import. For the most part, song titles this time around are shorter, such as "Lashed To The Slave Stick" and "Sacrifice Unto Sebek" -- though we do get "Chapter Of Obeisance Before Giving Breath To The Inert One In The Presence Of The Cresent Shaped Horns"! I read an interview with Nile recently where they admitted having a bit of a chuckle when they come up with titles like that...
As epic as ever (there's not many short songs here, even with the shorter song titles), this does differ from past extravaganzas perhaps in scaling back a bit on the atmospheric/ethnic samples. Being the Morbid Angel of bands that aren't actually Morbid Angel, this album is laced with both twisted, tormented leads and lumbering slow sand-blasted grinds (especially on the last and longest song, the Lovecraftian crusher "Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten"). Technically impressive (not as overtly nuts as Cephalic Carnage or Meshuggah, but still, whoa), well-produced, the works -- Annihilation Of The Wicked is another success for Nile. As if there was gonna be any question of that. This is NILE we're talking about!! They're still definitely deserving of their death metal crown (Pharonic scepter?)... if you're gonna buy just one DM album this year, you couldn't go too far wrong with this one!
With his high energy honky tonk sound and loud, twangy telecaster playing Buck Owens was not only partially responsible for revitalizing a dying country music scene -- with Nashville favoring ever more slick and syrupy production values -- but he's also often given credit for being the godfather of modern country (Yoakam, Brooks, et al). For the former we are thankful, and to the latter we can justly forgive him. After all, Buck Owens' music has about as similar to those "young country" artists as night and day. The scant 11 tracks included here were all recorded on the very cusp of Owens' fame in the mid-fifties, just before he signed to Capitol. Of particular interest here is a track called "Rhythm And Booze", the b-side to single Owens recorded under the pseudonym Corky Jones. Apparently Owens, then primarily a side man, recorded some sides for an L.A. based label of rockabilly tunes for some extra cash. While this disc is short, just about 20 minutes long, its well worth the investment as there's really not a dud in the batch. Like the other discs in this series there are some excellent liner notes by our friend Kurt Wolff (author of the Rough Guide To Country Music, among other things.)
Aerial M, Papa M., M and now David Christian Pajo (or if you go by the front cover even, simply 'Pajo')... Hmmm, it's a fact! Mr. Pajo by any other name still sounds as sweet. But we've just gotta ask, what's with all these artists who refuse to stick to one moniker? Will Oldham and Jason Molina are two other culprits. We'd understand it if each of their aliases' albums was drastically different from the next, but more often than not, it isn't. Such is the case with this solo self-titled album from the former member of Slint, Tortoise and Zwan, it really doesn't stray too far from where Pajo's roamed before. However, that said, there are a few notable new twists on his old self (or should we say 'selves'?), an unexpected turn into the breathily sung, achingly sensitive acoustic folk-pop domain of such artists as the late Elliott Smith or even the Moody Blues. Affecting note progressions, moving vocal performances and understated percussion are brought together with fine results. Recommended.
A band that loves black metal, Motorhead, and thinks that killer trees are cool?? French death n' roll juggernaut Phazm is just such a band. Rampaging trees (like the Ents from Lord of the Rings) menace fleeing humans on the disc's cover art, and in such songs as "Vicious Seed" and "Forest Recipe". It's kinda like Godzilla but with giant, malevolent trees instead of a big lizard. A bit silly, though environmentalists should approve. But the trees vs. humanity theme (one done very differently by Hammers Of Misfortune on The Bastard) shouldn't necessarily be what sells you on this anyway (or not). That'd be the music -- loud n' blackly, blastingly metallic, with pumelling drums, nasty guitars and gruff, raw vox, but with passages of melody as well, and a good helping of midpaced rock n' roll catchiness in the riff dep't. Almost like a black metal Kiss. And there's also an excellent and not entirely incongrous (even though it's not about trees) Motorhead cover here, a greatly gargled n' grinded version of "Dogs" from Motorhead's Rock N' Roll album, which serves to perfectly wrap up this debut blast of aggro-arboreal, black metal RAWK!
Includes a cd-rom low-budget video clip for one song.
Here's a new reissue of this well-regarded one-shot '60 psych artifact. Canada's Plastic Cloud (they have to be psych with a name like that, eh?) issued this, their sole album, on the Allied label in 1968. And if you like fuzz, it's for you! These darkly melodic psychedelic tunes, maybe something like a harder-edged Kaleidoscope (UK), don't stint on the killer fuzz tone. The band -- four modish lookin' gents in their early '20s named Brian, Randy, Mike and Don -- sure got the fuzz-laced, post-Peppers acid-psych-pop sound down, complete with sinewy psuedo Eastern sitarish stylings, vocal harmonies, and trippy lyrics with themes ranging from notions of reality to anti-war polemic. Those lyrics are presented in this cd's booklet alongside the LP's original J.R.R.-meets-the-Jabberwocky liner notes, photos, and a facsimile of the press release that heralded the LP's release. As melodic '60s vocal psych-pop goes, this is pretty decent (though no threat to the Beatles or the Beach Boys)...but when they unleash the fuzz guitar, that's when your hair will get hard if you're at all receptive to such soundz. A must-have for fuzz-freaks, essential to any serious '60s psych collection, no doubt. And dabblers may be get hooked too. Fer instance, if you took a shot on the Sam Gopal reish we reviewed recently, and were satisfied, you might wanna make this next item for your personal '60s hit parade.
Another slice of prime lo-fi New Zealand "pop" music. But pop only in the absolutely loosest sense of the world. Pumice, AKA Stephan Neville, crafts a haunting, murky, off kilter, otherworldly sort-of-pop music. Lots of warble, both instrument and malfunctioning tape, big ol' reverbed guitar, super distorted heavily affected melodies that sound like high pitched alien transmissions, mumbling marbles in the mouth vocals, clattery percussion, damaged motorik rhythms, not exactly in tune guitars, angular riffing, all cobbled together into one big beautiful chaotic pop mess that sounds a bit like a battle of the bands between the Dead C and the Velvet Underground, after all had partaken of the complimentary pot brownies, the secretly spiked punch, the PCP popsicles, oh and all that horse tranquilizer..
Damaged and druggy and darkly delirious, truly bizarre but strangely beautiful
Three early DJ Rupture tracks, from way back in 2000, a remix of Rupture by France's Rotator and a brand new Rupture track featuring Puerto Rican rapper MC Welmo Romero.
Another classic slab of dark dreamy drone from Stephen Clover aka Seht. The title definitely hints at what you'll find on this here disc: a slow moving glacial drone, icy and crystalline, throbbing and reverberating, shifting and swirling, barely there but somehow totally and gorgeously suffocating. Lush layers of sound, piled atop one another, as we watch each layer slowly merge with the one beneath it, sonic tendrils surreptitiously exploring the layers around it, until all the layers are inexorably linked, a slowly squirming intertangled mass, dreamy and hypnotic, but haunting and foreboding as well. The second track threw us for a loop though, when a seemingly out of place shuffling drum beat kicked in, all dubbed out and effected, which at first seemed totally distracting, but quickly drew us in with its propulsive throb, and the whole thing quickly becomes some sort of gorgeously alien krautrock. Really cool.
Another mysterious outfit on Celebrate PSi Phenomenon, who we've come to love, if not know entirely. How could we? Each record is a huge expanse of mysterious sound. A barely there sonic travelogue, a slow motion trip through a foggy and murky underbelly. As if somehow we figured out how to sneak behind all of the records ever made. Hidden behind the grand facades of commercial radio and punk rock rebellion and experimental noodling, is a vast expanse of concrete hallways that seem to go on into infinity, in every direction, even down. Tiny sounds echo through the halls forever, making it impossible to discern when the original was made, ten minutes ago? Ten years? A thousand? A dark and creepy seemingly endless glacial drift, the hum of machinery can be heard, just barely, through the thousands of feet that separate these deserted halls from the surface. The distant chirping of some tiny underground insect sometimes intrudes on the shimmering stillness, but just as soon drifts away, leaving ghostlike traces of sounds, and far away impressions of melodies that once were.
Gooey crunchy sludge from the Great White North.
67 minutes of what sounds like the sonic equivalent of your head dunked in Robitussin�
Gorgeous packaging: a double LP on nice thick vinyl, an ULTRA LIMITED edition of 300, all hand-screened (inside and out) printed on brown heavy cardstock that folds like a big envelope.
Which is perfect, you need a cover this thick to contain the downtuned blobs of almost unbearable heaviness that these guys ooze.
And we mean that in a good way� Mob Wheel is a delightfully skull caving mix of Dopethrone-era Electric Wizard and some Floor or later Cavity. Maybe even some early Unsane. All that with a giant dose of Bullhead-era Melvins crush and just a smidge of early Eyehategod. Tuneful? A bit. Melodic? A bit. Heavy? Let's see, imagine a dumptruck full of gold bricks, dipped in tar and dropped from a plane. That's sort of heavy. Now imagine that dumptruck MADE out of solid gold and filled with black holes, and fired from a cannon, in space, directly at your earhole. Now you're getting closer.
Yeah, you definitely need this: the gooey, sticky, sludgy, icky stuff we can't get enough of! Like someone took the record, threw it in a pot to boil, then dumped it over your head.
Fans of the "new sludge" (Boris, Corrupted, SUNNO))), Earth) will be in heaven (or hell I guess depending on your preference)!
Featuring a former member of doom-dirge lords Sons of Otis and a current member or metalcore heros Cursed, Shallow N.D. has been a mainstay in the Ontario scene since 1992.
Unfortunately the band have recently hung up their touring boots and put the van up on blocks, so we'll just have to imagine what it would be like see these guys conjure up this dissonant crunch and thud on stage!
Okay, basically, if the band name "Skeletonwitch" sounds cool to you (like, maybe you'd be willing to wear a T-shirt that says Skeletonwitch, or draw the Skeletonwitch logo on your school materials), and you like both modern black/death metal extremity and the more melodic, galloping sound of '80s speed/thrash metal a la Destruction, then chances are you'll dig this debut from Ohio's...Skeletonwitch! That is, they do indeed live up to everything that name implies (for the record, we think it's cool -- trying saying it out loud, in a sibilant stage-whisper), and play a hybridized blend of death metal/thrash, with raspy vox screeching and grunting over top of blazing '80s influenced speed metal heaviness, guitar solos and all. Dark, deceased, dissected and demonic. Dude! Skeletonwitch! Ready for your tattoo?
Skullflower's Exquisite Fucking Boredom, released last year on Andee's tUMULt label, welcomed back the seemingly retired Skullflower from a SEVEN YEAR hiatus. Skullflower mainman Matthew Bower was anything but MIA, keeping quite busy with his more blissed out Sunroof! project, as well as his equally blissed out but slightly noisier Hototogisu project. So after seven years, what was it that reanimated the slumbering corpse of Skullflower and sent the reawakened behemoth on a new path of sonic destruction. Well, it most definitely had something to do with THE RIFF. Exquisite Fucking Boredom was a throbbing pulsing ROCK record, a fucked up one for sure, but rock nonetheless. It was that relentless riffing eventually imploding on itself that convinced us that Skullflower was indeed back, to do unspeakable things with THE RIFF and offer up their own seriously skewed take on SPACE RAWK. So it seems now, with a new Skullflower record only a year later, we can rest assured that last year's return was for good.
All that talk of riffs, and a last record wholly centered around a single riff, and what does Bower do? Opens the new record with a dense splattery swirl of freaked out high end skree and throbbing drone, sounding not all that unlike his old group Total. There may be riffs in there somewhere, but you'd be hard pressed to find 'em. Sounds almost like he threw all of Hawkwind in the bathtub and then tossed in a plugged in hair dryer and recorded the results. Super freaked out spaced out free noise insanity! Fear not though, track two is where the riff returns, and once again we have to think Hawkwind, or maybe Circle, or even Can, that propulsive throbbing rhythm, that endless riffing, even some almost-leads, totally hypnotic and endlessly mesmerizing, a rock band rocking out until the end of the world as the earth opens up and the sky darkens with ash, although in this instance Bower takes that apocalyptic rock business and douses it in jagged sheets of white noise and huge slabs of acid fried feedback, swirling swells of amp buzz and chaotic guitar freakout, turning a rock song into a perilous journey through a sonic shitstorm. Makes sense that Crucial Blast has adorned this with a black metal styled Skullflower logo! And so it goes for the rest of the record. A musical tug of war, riffing is subsumed by squalls of white noise, massive waves of throbbing dissonance part allowing a riff to push its way through briefly, only to be eventually swallowed up again, eventually to resurface and push relentlessly forward into a looming musical darkness only toe be obliterated again into a beautiful cloud of swirling whirling noise. Not sure if this is the best rock record we've heard all year, or the best noise record. But it's damn sure one of 'em. Heck, it just might well be both!
Firstly, we should let you know that despite the peculiar album title's take on the Slade song there's absolutely nothing that we'd call 'noise' in any of these twenty-two songs (!), Illinoise or otherwise. This is Sufjan Stevens' second full length welcoming ode to a Midwestern state. Heck why not? His Greetings from Michigan album went over like gangbusters, and we've got a feeling this one will too. His folk-pop numbers of which this album is primarily comprised (fyi: he also crafts more abstract quirky electronic work) are so wistful and dreamy whether he's singing alone or has a sweet chorus joining in for a few bars. Actually when it's time for the group-sing, it's sorta like a more low-key Polyphonic Spree. Totally feel-good! Stevens' lilting compositions are highlighted by frolicking horns and swirling strings. This album balances his upbeat songs which can be downright jubilant with his more melancholic ones that might make you a bit misty-eyed... and that's even before you notice the songs' lyrical storylines and historical references about all thing Illinois. In fact, Illinoise will surely also appeal to fans of the lush pop sounds of more recent Belle & Sebastian or Kings Of Convenience. A super delight! Recommended.
Note: the likeness of a certain caped celebrity appears on the cover to this, and it turns out he (or his corporate sponsors) don't want him to be there, so this is going to be redone with new cover art sometime soon. Thus we're gonna run out of these pretty darn quick, and it may be out of stock for a wee while before they get repressed -- sorry!
Up until the release of Formen Letzter Hausmusik in 1984, Asmus Tietchens had released several curious electro-pop albums built upon rudimentary keyboard melodies and jaunty drum machine rhythms. However, this facet of Mr. Tietchens represents a very minor aspect of his entire catalogue; and in fact, many qualified Formen Letzter Hausmusik as the first 'real' Asmus Tietchens record, as some of the material for this album dates back to the late '60s when he first began to experiment with reel-to-reel tape and primitive electronics. When these recordings caught the ear of Steven Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound), he gushed, "I nearly fainted, never before have I heard music which touched my heart, indeed, I would go so far as to say it's possibly the most exciting sound I've heard for at least 10 years!" Woah! Now, that's high praise, and Formen Letzter Hausmusik does not disappoint. Tietchens presents sad accordion droning melodies next to synthetic, post-Dockstoder squiggle and whirling tape machine splutter, occasionally punctuated by Z'ev-ish metallic clanging and feedback squeals. Certainly fits in more with esoteric, post-industrial collage of Stapleton's United Dairies label (which actually released this back in the day) than the more clinical electro-acoustic presentations that Tietchens has produced over the past two decades.
This is totally kick ass stoner sludge pop! So right up our alley! Not surprising, as Torche is fronted by the main guy from equally heavy / poppy AQ faves Floor and also features one of the guys from AQ faves Cavity as well. Try to imagine the Melvins mixed with the the Foo Fighters and you'll get a rough idea. Massive downtuned metal riffs, stoner rock slowed waaaay dooown, and then wrapped in pop hooks and perfect harmonies. Ultra catchy sing songy melodies draped over pummelling dirges, like Christmas lights strung over a tarpit. AQ pal Josh was touting this as record of the year. And who are we to argue?! We dream about the day that this is the top forty we see on MTV and hear on the radio. It's as catchy if not catchier than most of the crap that gets shoved down kids' throats. And we're all for that 'your chocolate in my peanut butter' sort of unlikely combo, and you don't get much more unlikely than this. Sludge pop? Dirge pop? Stoner pop? Hardly matters. This is the record of the summer, the one you'll be blasting with the top down as you cruise along the beach. Assuming of course that it's the dead of night, and your car is black with bones hanging from the rearview mirror, and the stickshift has a human skull on it, and there's a corpse in your trunk, and your car is engulfed in a cloud of vampire bats, and all the windows are tinted blood red and you run down every one in your path. Exactly. Now there's no excuse for the metalhead in you life to safely indulge his or her musical sweet tooth!
Ulver. Once one of Norway's black metal, Viking wolfpacks. Worshipping at the dark throne of, ah, Darkthrone. But those days are long past... Ulver have evolved. You know this. Electronica. Techno. Goth. Post-rock. Soundtracks. Pop. Drone. All these things, good things...but no longer black metal. If you've followed the chameleons known as Ulver this far, and you've liked *everything* they've done, then you're gonna like Blood Inside too. But if you've had your doubts, then maybe this is gonna be the toughest one to swallow yet (despite what we heard pre-release about how "heavy" it was gonna be). 'Cause now they kinda sound like Tears For Fears. Tears For Fears at the circus.
Ok, it's not all like that. But there is a lot of singing. And gently gloomy pop atmospheres, and filmic orchestration, and weird progginess, and yes, some heaviness. Maybe later we'll realize this is Ulver's Faith No More's Angel Dust. However, one track features what sounds like an unanswered cell-phone ringing...and ringing. Who needs that on a cd??
Sorry, at first blush we're just not feeling it. Yet maybe Ulver have evolved beyond us. We'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt. But, we can definitely say that if you gave up at their last true studio-recorded full-length album before this one, Perdition City (as did Andee), this won't bring you back. And even if you liked that or subsequent releases like Teachings In Silence (which Allan considers the best post-black metal Ulver) or the A Quick Fix Of Melancholy ep you should check this out but it *might* be too Tears For Fearsy for you nonetheless. Of course, we're sure there's a whole audience for this (Tears For Fears fans?) that have never even heard of Ulver before... but we doubt they're reading this. It's tough. We want to like this. And maybe you will. But the ultimate test had to be, if it didn't say Ulver on it, would we even be listening? The textural glitch improv loveliness of Teachings In Silence definitely passed that test. This, though, well, it might take a few more listens...therein lies the paradox. I guess I'd better take one home just to be on the safe side.
Additional note: this comes enhanced with a video track for your computer.
Once again, the very patient prevail. Or at least the folks who weren't lucky enough to catch any of these super limited cd-r's first time around. A massive triple disc collection that gathers about three hours of early releases from Finland's Uton. Sonically similar to their Finnish free folk brethren (Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat, etc.), Uton specialize in wild and wooly, primitive free forest jams. Clattery rhythms, music box melodies, spaced out guitar echo, minimal vocalization, skronking horns and plenty of droning and rattling and scraping and thumping. Like a krautrock band that was left in the forest by it's parents and raised by wild woodland creatures. Epic and expansive sonic explorations, as spaced out as they are earthbound, soaring otherworldly freakouts collide with centuries old primal sound, to create a totally organic, totally alien wonderful world of sonic experimentation, sometimes percussive and propulsive, sometimes shimmery and dreamlike, sometimes crashing and pounding, sometimes gentle and mysterious but always completely mesmerizing and amazing! Quite possibly one of our Finnish faves! And that's saying a lot!
This collection contains all of Taman Ganan Jalkeen (released on Haamumaa in 2002), all of Mika Kasvaa Maan Gisalla (released on Hammasratas in 2003), all of Ay Um Au Lam (released on Jewelled Antler also in 2003), five rare comp tracks and six previously unreleased tracks!
A little side note: We have the same complaint with the Uton packaging as we had with the MCMS compilation (also on Last Visible Dog), a clear, three pocket plastic sleeve that holds the booklet (no tray card) and the three discs. Seems inevitable that the discs will get scratched, and they seem to stick to the plastic too, so if you, like us, want this music to last, it might be wise to transfer them to a proper jewel case, or at least put them in protective sleeves. Also, while this lists the original releases it doesn't provide any individual track listings!
British DJ Andy Votel (also responsible for the mindblowing Vertigo Mixed set that we'll be reviewing as soon as we have enough!) has compiled this fantastic disc devoted to, as you might expect, some way cool "folk" music sounds from approx. three decades ago... he's selected tracks from acts that range from pagan UK acid folk to SoCal styled sunshine popsyke to would-be Joni Mitchell songstress stuff to far-out hippy jams. Even a Polish blues band. Some of this had unrealized commercial potential, other stuff was willfully experimental...all of it is mellow and pretty, sometimes melancholic, sometimes sunny and buoyant. The folksters found here are mostly pretty obscure and uncelebrated, though AQ customers are likely to be already familiar with, say, Brigitte Fontaine and Linda Perhacs. And there's a track from Spain's wonderfully stoned Musica Dispersa, whose reissued album we so recently reviewed.
Here's all the artists: Carol Batton, Kathy Smith, Sarofeen & Smoke, Brigitte Fontaine, Linda Perhacs, Breakout, Musica Dispersa, The Poppy Family, Wendy & Bonnie, Bonnie Koloc, Heaven & Earth, Erica Pomerace, Audience, The Roundtable, Sidan. Lots of lovely female voices, some menfolk too. As you'd expect, a lot of this is a wee bit twee -- some cuts are more our thing than others -- but it's a fine comp with no duds and lots of gentle gems. Votel provides enthusiastic and well-researched liner notes with info on each artist featured. Nicely done!
Funny that there's such a renewed interest in cheesy seventies porn music. Especially considering that music in pornos always seemed to be some mediocre funk or soul, or sometimes super cheesy soundtracky fluff, and existed solely to fill out the sounds of a scene that would otherwise be nothing but grunts and groans and slapping skin. Not sure who decided that people looked (and sounded) better screwing to some totally innocuous R&B, but at some point it stuck, and thus porno music became a genre unto itself, immediately recognizable by its cloying melodies, boppy walking basslines, simple shuffling rhythms, silly synths and very un-funky funk. That said, these Deep Note collections have done a pretty great job of collecting the weirdest, and funniest, and thus the best the genre has to offer. None of these songs immediately evoke images of wild orgies or group sex or intimate lovefests, instead they mostly seem to evoke chase scenes, the credits of a sitcom, or background music for instructional videos. Which I suppose is what makes these so darn cool. Timeless in that totally dated way only porno music can be. But the real attraction here is the inclusion of a DVD, containing loads of the silliest scenes, weirdest dialogue, biggest... moustaches, Afros, and boobs, hairiest bods, unlikely locations and bad acting you will ever see! And prudes fear not! The editing has deftly left plenty up to the imagination, so the original X-rated clips have become a bit more R-rated!
We were so blown away by this film. One of those rare rock docs that is totally fascinating and fun to watch whether you like the bands or not. Although if you already love the bands, and the sound of that scene, then even better! Sort of like a filmic version of Mojo magazine (no matter who's on the cover, even if it's someone you don't care about at all, the article about them is always totally captivating)! So Made In Sheffield focuses on a bunch of bands we all dug at one time or another, Human League, Cabaret Voltaire ABC, Heaven 17 as well as loads of band from that scene we had never even heard of: Artery (one of John Peel's favorite according to his interview in the film) the Extras, I'm So Hollow and more. But as with most films like this, it's the clips, live and video, that make this movie so amazing, Human League on the BBC, tons of hand shot video footage of early shows and clubs, some rare early live Kraftwerk footage (inspiration for much of the scene), an interview with a very cranky Chris Watson (one of our favorite field recordists, and former member of Cabaret Voltaire), some killer Top Of The Pops footage, and sure Human League were sleek and good looking and beautiful back in the day, but somehow they still look just as good twenty years later!! Weird.
Extra stuff includes live footage of Sheffield lesser known legends Vice Versa, Artery, I'm So Hollow, extra interviews with Phil Oakley of the Human League, Chris Watson, Martyn Ware and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, the trailer, and loads of photos. Also comes with a big booklet of liner notes and cool rare photos! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just cut and paste the info into the comments area on the order form, or just email mailorder@aquariusrecords.org. A CERTAIN RATIO "Live America 1985" (Melodic) cd 14.98 AC/DC "Family Jewels" (Epic Music Video) dvd 21.00 ACID KING "III" (Small Stone) cd 15.98 AFRIRAMPO "Kore Ga Mayaku Da" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 ALIO DIE & FRANCESCO PALADINO "Angel's Fly Souvenir" (Hic Sunt Leones) cd 14.98 ALLIEN, ELLEN "Thrills" (BPitch Control) cd 15.98 ARCHETTI, LUIGI / BO WIGET "Low Tide Digitals II" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 BAND OF BEES, A "Free The Bees" (Astralwerks) cd 17.98 BLACK SABBATH "Master of Reality" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "Paranoid" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "s/t" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "Vol 4" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLUT AUS NORD "Memoria Vetusta I" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 BLUT AUS NORD "Ultima Thulee" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 BRIGMAN, GEORGE AND SPLIT "I Can Hear The Ants Dancin'" (Solid) cd 16.98 BUZZOV-EN "Welcome To Violence" (Alt Tentacles) cd 14.98 CAN "Future Days (Remastered)" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CAN "Landed (Remastered)" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CAN "Soon Over Babaluma" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CAN "Unlimited Edition (Remastered)" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CARTER, TOM & MARCIA BASSETT "Zaika I-IV" (Eclipse) lp 14.98 COUP, THE "The Best Coup DVD Ever!" dvd 14.98 DANGER DIABOLIK (Paramount) dvd 14.98 DEMONS & WIZARDS "Touched By The Crimson King" (SPV) cd 16.98 DRUNK HORSE "In Tongues" (Tee Pee) cd 15.98 ENBILULUGUGAL "Noizemongers For Goatserpent" (Rusty Axe) cd-r 7.98 ENO, BRIAN "Another Day On Earth" (Opal / Hannibal) cd 16.98 EYEHATEGOD "Preaching The "End-Time" Message" (Emetic) cd 14.98 FAY, BILL "s/t" (Eclectic Discs) cd 21.00 FAY, BILL "Time of the Last Persecution" (Eclectic Discs) cd 21.00 FENNESZ / SAKAMOTO "Sala Santa Cecilia" (Touch) cd ep 12.98 FOO FIGHTERS "In Your Honor" (Sony) 2cd 17.98 FORREST, JASON / DONNA SUMMER "Mastadon Razor / 100% Goodiepal" (LJUD) 7" 9.98 GENE LOVES JEZEBEL "Discover" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 13.98 GENE LOVES JEZEBEL "Immigrant" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 13.98 GENE LOVES JEZEBEL "Promise" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 13.98 GORILLA "Gimme Some..." (Beard Of Stars) cd 14.98 GRAHAM, DAVY "Folk, Blues & Beyond" (Fledg'ling) cd 16.98 GRAHAM, DAVY "Hat" (Fledg'ling) cd 16.98 GROWING "Dry Drunk On Woman b/w Residual Effects of Inertia II" (Nail In the Coffin / Mega Blade) 7" 4.98 ICKY BOYFRIENDS "A Love Obscene" (Menlo Park) 2cd 15.98 KIRCHIN, BASIL "Abstractions of the Industrial North" (Trunk) cd 17.98 LAST EXIT "Koln" (Atavistic) cd 14.98 LEE, RITA "Build Up" (Cherry Red) cd 17.98 LIPPOK, ROBERT & BARBARA MORGENSTERN "Tesri" (Monika) cd 15.98 MASADA "Sanhedrin" (Tzadik) 2cd 34.00 MC5 "1965-1968" (Get Back) 2lp 17.98 MC5 "Are You Ready To Testify! The Live Bootleg Anthology" (Sanctuary) 3cd 21.00 MC5 "Rehearsals" (Get Back) 2lp 17.98 MONOLAKE "Polygon Cities" (Monolake) cd 16.98 MONOS "Generators" (Die Stadt) cd 27.00 MONOSOV, ILYA & PRESTON SWIRNOFF "Seven Recorded Works" (Eclipse) lp 13.98 MONOSOV, ILYA & PRESTON SWIRNOFF "The Shining Path" (Eclipse) lp 13.98 MOPING SWANS, THE "Lightninghead To Coffeepot" (Fading Captain) cd 10.98 MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "When The Windmill's Whirl Dies" (Eclipse) 2lp 15.98 NARITA MUNEHIRO "s/t" (PSF) cd 19.98 NDEGEOCELLO, MESHELLE "The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance Of The Infidel" (Shanachie) cd 16.98 NEGURA BUNGET "Inarborat Kosmos" (Code 666) cd 13.98 NETHER DAWN, THE "Whiskey Mute-Down" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 NETO, LULIEN "Le Fumeur de Ciel" (Type) cd 16.98 NORDENSTAM, STINA "The World Is Saved" (V2) cd 14.98 NUDGE "Cached" (Kranky) cd 14.98 OCEAN, THE "Fluxion" (Throne) cd 13.98 ODD NOSDAM "Burner" (Anticon) cd 14.98 OFERMOD "Mysterion Tes Anomias" (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) cd ep 13.98 OL' DIRTY BASTARD "The Definitive Story" (Atlantic) cd 17.98 ONDSKAPT "Dodens Evangelium" (Next Horizon) cd 14.98 PEPPERMINTS "Jesus Chryst" (Paw Tracks) cd 15.98 PERNICE BROTHERS "Discover A Lovelier You" (Ashmont) cd 15.98 POSIES "Every Kind Of Light" (Ryko) cd 15.98 RAMASES "Space Hymns" (Vertigo) cd 19.98 RIBOT, MARC "Spiritual Unity" (Pi Recordings) cd 15.98 RINALDI, RENATO "Hoarse Frenzy" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 SCHMIDT, CHARLIE "Xanthe Terra" (Strange Attractors Audio House) cd 13.98 SEVENTH SONS "Raga (4 A.M. at Frank's)" (ESP-Disk) cd 15.98 SHOCKED, MICHELLE "Threesome (Limited Edition)" 3cd 33.00 SIRONE "Live" (Atavistic) cd 14.98 SO SO MANY WHITE WHITE TIGERS "s/t" (Weird Forest) picture disc 11.98 SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE "Four Winds the Walker" (Secret Eye) cd 13.98 SPOOKY, DJ & DAVE LOMBARDO "Drums Of Death" (Thirsty Ear) cd 15.98 STILL "Remains" (Public Guilt) cd 14.98 SUGIMOTO, TAKU "Live In Australia" (Improvised Music of Japan) cd 27.00 TAR PET "The Artist Revealed Is Taralie Dawn" (Eclipse) lp 14.98 TARENTEL "Ghost Weight" (Acuarela) cd 11.98 THING, THE "Live at Bla" (Smalltown Superjazzz) cd 16.98 TLC "Now & Forever: The Hits" (Arista) cd 16.98 TRAFFIC SOUND "Yellow Sea Years" (Vampisoul) cd 21.00 V/A "Down In A Mirror: A Second Tribute To Jandek" (Summersteps) cd 12.98 V/A "Ikon Records Story" (Frantic) 2cd 26.00 V/A "Lean Into It: A Tribute To Die Kreuzen" (Erosion) cd 13.98 V/A "PSF & Alchemy: 20th Anniversary Live" (PSF) cd 19.98 V/A "Vertigo Mixed ...by Andy Votel" (Vertigo / Family Recordings) cd 19.98 WALKABOUTS "Slow Days With Nina" (Shingle Street) cd ep 5.98 WHITE MICE "ASSPhIXXXEATATESHUN" (Load) cd/lp 13.98/13.98 WOLD "L.O.T.M.P." (Profound Lore) cd 10.98 WOODEN WAND AND THE VANISHING VOICE "Xiao" (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 13.98 WRIGHT, FRANK "The Complete ESP-Disk' Recordings" (ESP-Disk) 2cd 24.00 XIU XIU "La Foret" (5RC) cd 14.98 ZION I "True & Livin" (LiveUp) cd 15.98 ZS "Karate Bump" (Planaria) cd 8.98 ZZZZ / UZ JSME DOMA "split" (PolyVinyl) 7" 4.98
We've long been champions of the mighty mysterious Fflint central label and their beautifully bizarre droning electronic weirdness. And we've raved about every single one of their cd-r releases. So we were pretty excited when the kind folks at Birdman decided to collect the best bits from all those releases and compile them on a real cd to create the ultimate Fflint primer. Essential for those of you who have yet to discover the amazing sonic world that is Fflint Central; absolutely necessary for those of you who have worn your old Fflint cd-r's down to spinning plastic nubs; and don't think you Fflint obsessives are getting off easy, there are several exclusive tracks never before released that you of course need! We could go on and on and gush endlessly, but since our very own Andee wrote the liner notes, we might as well just let you read what he had to say:
What the fuck is Fflint anyway? A place? A label? A bunch of cheeky bastards who have, in the matter of a few short years, rendered all other UK electronica obsolete? Umm, a place?
In the world of popular music, world-changing things get old fast. With the advent of punk rock, it was a thrill realising that anyone could start a band, but that wore off -real- quick, once everybody did. And then, when the laptop replaced the guitar as the "instrument" anyone could buy and thus have their own" band", it wasn't long before we found ourselves at shows, watching nerds check their emails on stage while we sipped overpriced drinks and fantasized about slipping into the bar to play some Galaga. And then came the cd-r. Christ, you thought the tape was bad. At least with tapes you always had something laying around to dub the new Van Halen or Motley Crue record on. But cd-r's, c'mon. Fuck. Not only can you not tape over them, but even my mom has a limited cd-r release. (And it's not half bad!)
So when you discover some mysterious group, who are quietly releasing cd-r's filled with sounds that are beautiful and perplexing and dreamy and annoying and dark and mesmerising and fucked beyond all possible comprehension, you cling to them like you were a mama bear and these cd-r's were your newborn cubs. But at the same time you are constantly wondering why -- knowing that these sounds exist and are somewhat readily available -- anyone would knowingly choose to listen to the rest of the shit out there.
Well that's all about to change.
And I guess that brings us back to the big question. What the hell is Fflint anyway? Obviously it's music, after all you're holding their cd in your grubby little paws as we speak. But is it electronica? Noise? Dark ambience? Twentieth century? Twenty First Century? Who the hell knows? And honestly, who gives a shit.
This is sound, pure and not so simple. An endless series of unlikely musical events. Some soothing and serene, some droning and delirious, and some so harsh it hurts to even listen. But all of it, every single bit, is unlike anything you've ever heard. Or ever will hear again. It's not just music, but the sounds of music. And the music of sound, entering your ears from the inside, filling your wide open skull with malfunctioning maelstroms of stuttering, fuzzed out synth and hiccupping bursts of thundering glitchery colliding with sputtering clicks and oscillating low end rumbles, draped over chest rattling modulated pulses. Ultra harsh noise smeared over a strange man humming into a broken telephone, while an orchestra of detuned guitars tries desperately to compete in the background. Thousands of tiny hands unwrapping cellophane candies in a hyperbolic chamber, while little girls in tap shoes run laps around your eardrums. Epileptic bagpipes and faraway seal calls rub up against scratching and scraping woodblocks, timestretched into sinister growls or raw and ultra distorted high end melodies, while player pianos are reverbed to death until they become an ominous hum, like a swarm of mechanical wasps pinned down by loping, stumbling Autechre-ish loops and rhythmic workouts: all stuttering thumps and slow motion handclaps, like Timbaland being held down in your bathtub struggling for air. Mysterious and sing-songy Krautrock, jangly and noisy, rambling and shambolic, giving way to shimmery skree, melodies shifting and eventually splitting apart and forming new more abstract melodies, while chirping birds and guttural Orc-ish vocalisations convulse atop a bed of keening chimes and high end swells. Abstract IDM gets deconstructed into shards of jagged dance refuse, beats, shuffling and skittering beneath shifting chords and slabs of minor key sound. Rich sheets of dense sound, layers of sweet ambience, and the metallic hum of excited strings, eventually becoming clipped and static, a hypnotic looped rhythm over accordions, crowd sounds and more bird calls. Grinding scraping pulsing drones unfurl like a small village being over run by snakes made out of bowed cymbals and broken samplers. A dense, crushing melodic downpour, like laying prone in a pool of Rephlex 12"s while hundreds of 'electronica artists' piss on you from above. Hissing ambience created by a choir of tracheotomy patients with malfunctioning hearing aids spewing intercepted shortwave transmissions, interrupted by occasional gunfire; only the bullets are Masonna cassettes and Merzbow cd-r's. A skittery but smooth drone-dirge, like someone drugged Boards of Canada and then pushed them down the stairs, while outside the Fflint guys try desperately to start the getaway car.
Yes, but is it music? Can I dance to it? Will it make the opposite sex swoon and want to sleep with me? No, probably not. Actually, most definitely not. This is not like the music you're used to. This is not music you'll hear on the radio or download from iTunes or hear on a car commercial. This is not music to dance to, or fuck to, or headbang to. Or maybe it is. At least for some of us. But that's precisely what makes Fflint and their divine din so special. And so goddamn important. This is pure sound, sound outside of music. But music the way we wish all music could be: Pure and freed from all the constraints that keeps "popular music" so boring and pointless and well, popular.
This is unpopular music. We are unpopular people.
And we couldn't be happier.
PS: actually, we should say that this is Record of *next* Week, technically. Since we actually can't sell it 'til its "street date" on Tuesday, the 12th. But go ahead and mailorder it now, 'cause you won't get your shipments until after then anyway. Locals, line up Tuesday morning!
Compilations are all about the concept. Come up with a good concept, and a good compilation is sure to follow. So how can you go wrong with a bunch of noisy bands, rock and otherwise, penning odes to their favorite sicknesses?! You can't. And if you make sure the list of contributors includes lots of AQ favorites, like Bomb 20, the Bran Flakes, the Evolution Control Committee, V/VM, and Deerhoof and maybe throw in some tUMULt bands like Burmese, Iran, 7000 Dying Rats and Berkowitz Lake And Dahmer and you've got it made. Songs about Gonorrhea, Gingivitis, Tinnitus, Priapism, Arthritis, Rickets, Gangrene, Alzheimers and more with sounds ranging from full on noise attacks, to silly cut up collages, to crushing ultrathick drones, to digital glitch-crunch, to dreamy lullabies. Sickness has never sounded so good.
The monthy music magazine that we can't imagine any serious AQ customer kind of person wouldn't find useful is here with July's ish. Jamie Lidell makes the cover. Inside, you'll find Monolake, Ornette Coleman, Magik Markers, Tony Bevan, Animal Collective and Ariel Pink. Along with a primer on solo horn improv (Evan Parker, Kaoru Abe, Anthony Braxton, Peter Brotzman, Charles Gayle, Albert Mangelsdorff, and many more), and (this is worth the price of admission sez Allan) an "Invisible Jukebox" session with Keiji Haino, wherein he has an illuminating chat with Alan Cummings about Blue Cheer, medieval music, and Wilson Pickett among other faves. Plus this issue's got all the usual reviews, charts, ads, letters, news bits, etc.
All right! More seemingly time-lost but actually quite contemporary psych-rock from the musical wizards that populate Sweden, a mystical land seemingly teeming with talented retro-rockers such as Elope and Dungen. Not only are The Works on the same label as (the now exceedingly and deservedly popular) Dungen, but members of Dungen and The Works have played in each other's bands, one of the Works playing live on tour with Dungen, while Dungen folks guest on this debut cd from The Works. But they don't sound exactly alike, of course -- this is less rustic, less folky than Dungen, more proggy, more bombastic. And The Works sing in English. But there ARE flutes. Along with spacey, symphonic washes of keyboards, organ, and Mellotron. Of course Mellotron. These guys are called The Works after all, and they're not gonna leave out anything that'll give 'em that authentic '60s/'70s psych-prog vibe! They certainly share some influences with Dungen but have other obvious ones of their own as well... listening to this, we mentally checked off the following as probable influences and/or possible comparisons: Pink Floyd, Sgt. Pepper's, Yes, Pugh Rogefeldt, The Who, Olivia Tremor Control, and Radiohead circa OK Computer. The latter especially really seems to surface as the album progresses, actually. We won't say this destroyed us quite like Dungen did, but for a modern day, backwards-glancing psych-prog-pop piece it's quite nice indeed!
Included on the end of the Bongo Flava compilation (see AQL #216), X Plastaz are one of the biggest names in Tanzanian hip hop -- hence the release of this disc, a closer examination of their music. You'd never know to listen -- unless you can speak Swahili and Haya -- but the music of X Plastaz is steeped in social and political activism. Criticizing corrupt politicians, speaking out against violence, theft and unemployment. And while the Tanzanian hip hop scene in its infancy certainly owed much, if not imitated directly, the hip hop music coming out of the U.S., the Bongo Flava groups take just as many cues from dancehall, Indian film music and -- in X Plastaz case -- traditional Maasai chanting. The latter is what makes X Plastaz stand so far out from the Bongo Flava crowd: including in their crew a Maasai warrior on vocals. The Maasai are rural people, who still live in tight knit villages and follow age old traditions long since foresaken by the modernized urban Tanzanian population. Further, the Maasai are seen as backward by the urban Tanzanians. So along with being looked down upon by older, more conservative Tanzanians for partaking in this "degenerate" musical form, they stand apart from their young, urban counterparts. Pretty damn punk rock when you consider it. As a bonus, two videos of X Plastaz are included on the disc.
